Recently, with development of information communication technology, various wireless communication technologies have been developed. Among others, a wireless local area network (WLAN) enables wireless access to the Internet using a portable terminal such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), a laptop, a portable multimedia player (PMP) in a home, an enterprise or a specific service provision area based on radio frequency technology.
In order to overcome limitations in communication rate which have been pointed out as weakness of a WLAN, in recent technical standards, a system for increasing network speed and reliability and extending wireless network distance has been introduced. For example, in IEEE 802.11n, multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) technology using multiple antennas in a transmitter and a receiver has been introduced in order to support high throughput (HT) with a maximum data rate of 540 Mbps or more, to minimize transmission errors, and to optimize data rate.
As next-generation communication technology, machine-to-machine (M2M) communication technology has been discussed. Even in an IEEE 802.11 WLAN system, technical standards supporting M2M communication have been developed as IEEE 802.11ah. In M2M communication, a scenario in which a small amount of data is communicated at a low rate may be considered in an environment in which many apparatuses are present.
Communication in a WLAN system is performed in a medium shared between all apparatuses. As in M2M communication, if the number of apparatuses is increased, in order to reduce unnecessary power consumption and interference, a channel access mechanism needs to be more efficiently improved.